


Probability

by esama



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Do not repost, Don't copy to another site, Existentialism, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-27 17:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18196922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: Desmond and Clay talk about his chances on the Animus Island.





	Probability

**Author's Note:**

> Proofread by nimadge

"You know you can't procrastinate your way out of this? The issue's still gonna be there when you get around to it, just with less time to deal with it. And you don't have that much time left, Desmond, old boy."

Desmond sighs, looking down from the clouds he'd been watching. Clay is standing over him, hands at his hips and a foot tapping the ground, like a disgruntled parent, catching their kid playing instead of studying. "I'm tired," he says.

"Your body has been asleep for _days_ , Desmond, you can't be _tired_. It's physically impossible."

"I'm _mentally_ tired. I'm – sick of Istanbul. The architecture is going to drive me insane, it makes no sense," Desmond says and stretches out his arms before tucking them under his head. "I need a break or I will lose it."

"Take a break and you're _highly_ likely lose it."

"Yeah? Gonna take a break anyway."

Clay eyes him dubiously for a moment, so Desmond closes his eyes so he doesn't have to see him. Maybe Clay will be gone when he opens them again, and it will be just him and the clouds again, and he could pretend a little longer that he was seeing actual clouds and not like… simulations of them.

When he opens his eyes, Clay is still there – now sitting beside him, looking tense and a little awkward. "The architecture is my fault, a bit," Clay admits. "I'm cutting as many corners I can, so there's repetition with the environment assets. That's why the buildings don't always make sense, they're kind of just… thrown together."

Desmond gives him a look and then sighs. "The buildings are fine," he says and looks at the clouds. "It's – it's not any one thing. It's all of the things. It's Istanbul and this –" he motions around them. It's not exactly the island, or even Istanbul, it was the whole of it, really. Being stuck in the Animus with no way out. "This existence. I keep wanting to… I don't know. Log out. Eat, sleep, shower, take a walk, _something_. How long has it been?"

"Do you really want to know?" Clay asks.

"Yeah, kinda. But also kinda not," Desmond admits. "It feels like months."

"Time moves faster here – but you should be used to that. Decades in the Animus can be just weeks outside," Clay shrugs. "But it's been two weeks, for your information."

"Jesus Christ," Desmond mutters. "I'm really in a coma, huh? How am I still alive and haven't, I don't know – starved to death?"

"Don't ask me, I don't have access to your body. At a guess, the same way every other coma patient is kept alive," Clay shrugs and casts him a look. "You're probably better off not thinking about it."

"Yeah, no kidding," Desmond says.

"I mean it seriously. Mind over Matter, Desmond – what you think actually affects this place," Clay says and motions to the pillars, the portals – the gateways to the _other_ partitions. "As you see."

"Yeah."

They're quiet for a while, watching the clouds, Desmond lying on his back in the patchy grass while Clay pulls his knees to his chest, rocking idly where he sits. There's a sound of thunder somewhere in the distance – a perpetual approaching storm that never really arrives to the island. It's kind of annoying, actually – the weather is stuck in this in-between state and it never changes. Perpetually gloomy overcast, with a threat of rain and thunder that never quite delivers.

"I'm so sick of this shit," Desmond mutters. "The Animus. I get – I get that it's important, but."

"But you'd rather be a no-name loser in the back of a bar somewhere, being drooled over by your not so subtle boss."

"Rude, and Mike was fine," Desmond says and looks at him. Clay is looking at him pretty coolly. "Sorry," Desmond says, not particularly sincerely. "I guess it's worse for you."

"Peaches and pears," Clay says. "You wanna talk about worse, worse is Daniel Cross. That's _worse_. Fate worse than fucking death."

"Who?"

"Never mind," Clay says and scoffs. "Let's not compare pains and fates, that's just – it's a perception issue, and there's no point comparing perception, it's not measurable."

Desmond looks at him, hoping for an explanation for that, but Clay just shrugs and rocks idly back and forth, back and forth. Desmond blows out a breath. "Lucy probably got it pretty bad too," he muses.

"Let's not," Clay mutters.

"Yeah."

They're quiet for a moment again, Desmond watching the clouds while Clay lowers his eyes and stares resentfully out to the sea.

"I was fine in that bar," Desmond mutters then. "I would've been happy stuck there for the rest of my life, not knowing or believing any of this shit. I get that it would've been shitty for other people still, but… ignorance is bliss and all that. I would've been fine with it."

"Nah, you were restless, you hated it," Clay says and nods to the pillars again. "I went through your memories too, you know – you got sick of it, towards the end. It wasn't all you hoped for, and you got frustrated with it. You would've left the bar in a few months, if you hadn't been kidnapped – left the city too, maybe, depending on if you met her again."

Desmond cranes his head to look at him. "What are you talking about? Met who?"

Clay rocks back and forth, tense with new agitation. Then he rolls down to his back and lets his legs splay out – one of his knees comes to rest against Desmond's thigh. "It's – possibilities. No, probabilities," he says and reaches out his hands. "Alternate options. Realities. I don't know terminology you would get. Would have beens?"

Desmond blinks at him and then turns a little, getting his elbow under his torso to prop himself up. "What, seriously?"

Clay doesn't answer, looking tense for a moment, like he's waiting for something. Then he shrugs. "Probability is one hell of a drug," he says. "You glimpse it once, and it sticks with you. They called it the _Calculations_ – Minerva, Juno, their people. They figured it out at a higher level – we regular old humans call it Probability, and treat it as a thought experiment, but it isn't."

"What _are_ you talking about?" Desmond asks, wary.

Clay blows out a breath. "You are not this stupid – I've seen your brain, it's not completely useless," he says flatly. "Murphy's law on steroids. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Except it's actually everything that _can_ happen _will_ happen, _has_ happened and _is_ happening, forever, endlessly. Not all in one place, obviously not, but – somewhere. In another world, in another history, another future. Alternate realities."

"Alternate realities exist," Desmond says flatly.

"If it had any actual effect, I'd beat you over the head with a rock," Clay answers. "Stop playing dumb, I know you're more than a pretty face. Again, seen your brain."

Desmond huffs out a laugh. "Sorry," he says and leans his cheek on the crook of his elbow, watching the other Animus subject with interest. "So, in some other alternate reality there is a _her_ that I might have met?" he asks with interest.

"Met _again_ ," Clay says, considering him and then looking away. "Ah, what the hell," he says then. "Nobody here but us chickens. Let me tell you a story."

"I'm all ears," Desmond says. "Shoot. Tell me a yarn."

Clay throws a pebble at him and then thinks for a moment, running his fingers through his blond hair. "Right, okay. There was once upon a time boy named Desmond who was born in a family of Assassins. He had impressive lineage and powerful father and all the cards lined up just right to make him a great little killer – only, there was an issue with him."

Desmond frowns but says nothing as Clay continues. "Desmond wasn't much of a learner. Not that anyone could tell. His father could train him day and night, but nothing really stuck," Clay continues and taps his forehead. "He got all the right ingredients for greatness, but something just wasn't clicking. He was the slowest runner, the worst fighter, couldn't do much climbing, just… the worst. So, his father taught him harder, kept him on that rink for longer, pushed further, wore little Desmond to the bone, until one day push came to shove, and Desmond turned and ran in the opposite direction."

"Hey," Desmond says with a faint tone of objection. "I learn just fine, thanks."

"Not by _doing_ , though," Clay says, pointing an idle finger at him. "Not by training, not by practice. You can try something a hundred times, do hundred repetitions, and you forget it the next day. Which on the outside looks like…?"

Desmond grimaces. Can't really argue with that.

"The way you learn things is _freaky_. Anyway, our Desmond ran, ran, ran far away, and eventually, somewhere along the way, he learned how to learn, figured out how to figure things out – but it was way too late by then, he was far away, wasn't going back," Clay says. "And so he kept on running all the way to the great big old New York City, and there he learned some other things. And he met a woman, and slept with that woman, one night some… seven years ago? Thereabouts. And then never saw her again."

Clay makes a winding motion. "And then the rest, bar, bike, kidnapping, Animus, coma. Fun times. You know where that story is at."

"I also know I've slept with a lot of women," Desmond says. "So one woman seven years ago, it doesn't tell me much."

"Ah, yeah, it wouldn't," Clay agrees. "You were doing a lot of drugs at the time. Doesn't really matter, you're never going to see her again, but it was a bit more impactful for her than it was to you, from where we get to the second story. Second verse same as the first, up until the kidnapping. In this story, Desmond is never found by the Big Bad of Abstergo, and so he stays at the bar, and no one kidnaps anyone."

"I like this story better already, to be honest," Desmond says, watching him closely. "In this the one where I meet this mystery woman again, then?"

"And also her son," Clay says. "Young Elijah, who has your nose and your cheekbones."

Desmond stares at him blankly for a moment and then sits up. " _What_?"

"Yep, and then all three of you die when the Sun burns the Earth," Clay agrees. "It's terribly unfortunate, really, but for about… two months this Desmond Miles got to enjoy the panic of belated fatherhood, because baby mama got in some trouble with law and young Elijah needed a caretaker, and baby daddy was all there was, regardless of the fact that baby daddy was living under a false name and hiding from mysterious cults. This Desmond didn't even have a vehicle to his name – it's sad, really."

Desmond stares at him in horror for a long moment before he finds his voice. "Is – is he alive in _this_ reality?" he asks then. "This kid, Elijah – is he around in – in our timeline?"

Clay arches his brows. "Does it make a difference?"

"Yeah, it fucking makes a _difference_! If I have a kid I'd fucking want to know, Clay!"

Clay tilts his head a bit and then looks away. He looks almost confused, like he wasn't expecting the reaction. "Got some stories about him too," he says then. "Your kid usually grows up to be a right asshole."

"What – _Clay_ –"

"Seriously," Clay says and then crosses his arms behind his neck, peering at the clouds. "You have no idea in how many worlds he becomes the head of organisations rivalling Abstergo, it's ridiculous. Must be his genes." Clay stops there and then looks at Desmond. "You know you're genetically engineered, right?"

"I – what?" Desmond says. "Clay, for fuck's sake – I don't care. Tell me about the kid."

"I am," Clay says, giving him a light kick with the side of his foot. "Minerva engineered a whole bloodline of people just to produce _you_ with the right genetic makeup. That was what that Apple nonsense was about – Minerva made the Apple into a lock, and your genes were the key. Lock, key, snap – rest in peace, Lucy."

"Clay, fucking seriously, I swear to _god_ –"

"That got passed over to Elijah, except… magnified," Clay says. "Like you are a funnel, or a – filter. Only the purest Isu stuff got passed through, and Elijah got whammied pretty seriously. So he's more _them_ than us, regular old humans. A bit too _much_ like _them,_ if I'm being honest. Enough to be a fucking… yeah. Not a good thing."

Desmond shakes his head but doesn't try to interrupt this time, so Clay gets to continue unhindered. "So, he's more like the Isu than average, and it makes him a bit," he whirls a finger beside his temple.

"He's mentally disabled?" Desmond asks, trying to keep up.

"No. Well, maybe. He has tendency of becoming a bit of a sociopath. But he's also brilliant. He's a got a spark of alien intelligence, if you will. Mad genius," Clay says and nods. "You can take that and run to the fucking moon with it, really. And not always in a good way. Doesn't take much to turn him to total global dominance, if you get what I mean."

"Christ," Desmond mutters.

"Don't take it personally – you've never met the kid. You just provided the sperm," Clay shrugs. "Anyway, after you die, he grows up a bit, his mother is killed, he gets kidnapped by cultists that worship Juno, who think he's reincarnation of Juno's husband, all the good stuff. Well, that's one world, anyway. In another one he builds a high-tech company that puts together androids, which overtake pretty much… all the markets and rule the global economy by the year 2040. Yeah."

Desmond opens his mouth, closes it, and then sighs. "Jesus Christ, _what_ ," he mutters and runs a hand over his face. "And which one is going to happen in _this_ world?"

"I don't know. That's the thing with probability. It kicks predeterminism's ass," Clay says and hums. "At a guess, the first one. It's a bit more likely – and if it's not the Instruments of the First Will kidnapping Elijah, then it's Abstergo – and if it doesn't happen because he's your son, it's because he's becoming a rival to Abstergo and that's a big no-no."

Desmond shakes his head. "I have to get out of here," he mutters and moves to get up. "I have to warn them, somehow."

"The door's right there, hop to it," Clay says, motioning back to the gate that leads to Istanbul. "Finish the Nexus, get out, try and get the word out, fail, die in a fire."

"Hey," Desmond says, complaining.

"Probability," Clay says apologetically. "Your death's got sadly _very_ high chances of probability. Sorry, buddy. And Bill won't let you send the word out at the fear of Abstergo picking it up and finding you, and do you _really_ think you could walk away now? Psh."

"I have to do _something_ ," Desmond snaps. "You just told me I have a _son_ whose mom might end up being killed – I have to… I have to do something."

"Honestly speaking, the kid's been doing fine until now, and the shitstorm is still years away. Anything could happen before then," Clay says and props one leg on top of another, rocking his foot back and forward. "It sucks. Life does that, sometimes."

Desmond hesitates and then sits back down, scowling. "Why tell me this if I can't even do anything about it?"

Clay doesn't answer immediately, scowling at the clouds. "I had a point," he says, bouncing his foot restlessly. "Right, stories. Probabilities. Abstergo finds you, you go into the Animus, you die, that's like… that takes a huge chunk of the percentage. I mean, if everything is stuffed into a scale of hundred percent, then there's about fifteen percent chance of that happening, and having happened."

"Fifteen percent isn't much," Desmond mutters, looking away.

"Fifteen percent of statistics that span… literally infinite sum of possibilities, it's goddamn huge," Clay says. "Granted, there is a higher probability that you don't exist at all. Did you know, the probability that we don't actually exist at all, it's not zero? Actually, it's higher than your fifteen percent chance of being Abstergonapped."

Desmond sighs, still distracted with the thought of Elijah and having kid. "Yeah, sure."

"I'm serious," Clay says and holds out his hands. "I mean, look at this fucking place. We're literally in a simulation, and it feels real, right? Could fool someone into thinking it's reality. Real lifelike simulation is _already_ possible. So, the probability that some high-tech society running simulations of us, that's not zero. This could all be an ancestor simulation, and considering that we can now do _this_ with a mobile unit that fits in a _van_ … who knows how many people might have something like this in like, fifty years, hundred years, thousand? How many simulations will people be running then? If reality has the probability of _one_ , and those simulations all each have probability of _one_ , then in a few generations our chances of being actually real go down, down, down… down to fractions of a percentage."

Desmond isn't really listening anymore, sitting up with his arms resting on his bent knees, glaring at the ocean, trying to think. "Goddamnit," he mutters, annoyed, as he comes to the conclusion there's no easy way out and Clay might be right – he probably wouldn't be able to send a message to anyone, never mind a kid he never knew about, and doesn't know the location or even the full name of.

If the kid even exists – Clay could be talking out of his ass.

Clay trails away. "The probability of you becoming a god is not zero."

Desmond blinks and looks at him. "What?"

Clay bounces his foot a bit. "You see where this all is going, right?" he says. "Minerva made you for a reason, Juno wants to manipulate you for a reason – there's a very linear path they've set you on, and it leads to a place, to a Temple, to a touchstone. You know what will happen when you touch it?"

Desmond frowns and says nothing, looking away.

"See, Minerva learned to read the future," Clay says. "Juno learned to manipulate it, sure – but Minerva, she figured it out. The probability, the Calculations – and how to control them. Nothing is impossible in the realm of probability. We could all be programs running on a computer, we could be worms still stuck in the primordial sea, we could all be robots – nothing has the probability of _zero_. That's the crazy thing about probability. If you can even for a _moment_ imagine something, then that something is probably possible. It might only have a zero point zero zero zero ad infinitum zero one chance of probability – but it's not _zero_."

Desmond glances at him, interested despite his annoyance. "And?" he asks, impatient.

"And there is like… zero point zero forty two chance of you becoming a god," Clay says. "See, Minerva's method of saving the world, it _controls_ probability. Picks and chooses between percentages. With it you can tone down the probability of Sun burning the Earth – or turn up Earth's chances of surviving it. You can also fiddle with your own probabilities using it."

Clay turns his eyes to him, arching his brows. "Juno is going to have you turn up the probability of Desmond Miles dying," he says conversationally. "Just wait and see. Before it all goes down, she'll convince you it will kill you, and so you will subconsciously turn it up. Chance of Earth surviving, hundred percent. Chance of it killing Desmond Miles, also hundred percent. Nice and neat. Except it doesn't have to be that way, because probability…"

Clay trails away expectantly, giving him a look. Desmond finishes, frowning. "Is never hundred percent?"

"Ting ting ting, we have a winner," Clay agrees. "Nothing is. Nothing ever will be. It's neither zero nor a hundred – it's infinite decimals in between and… everything is possible."

Desmond looks away, turning the thought over his head. "I don't want to be a god."

"Well, that's because you're still a bit dumb," Clay says and sighs. "I would. Anyone would."

Desmond sighs too, and lays back down, crossing his hands behind his back for cushion. "Okay," he says. "What's the probability of me ever meeting Elijah then?"

Clay hums. "It's not high," he says, squinting at the fake sky. "There's one scenario I'm particularly fond of, but it's one in a trillion. You die at the grand temple, except not. Something goes _click_ somewhere along the way, and the tech you've been fiddling with, it starts changing your body, converting it into _their_ tech. Desmond Miles, the Piece of Eden, basically. Abstergo gets you, of course, dissect you, keep you in a box, learn from you, yadda yadda. Fun stuff. You're dead but also not."

He waves a hand. "Elsewhere, young Elijah, who is all Isu-minded because genes, begins tinkering, begins building. He wants to make… people. See, the Isu-mindedness and genes. So he builds Androids to serve him as his ancestors built people before him. Fun stuff. Fast forward years, and he's up and coming entrepreneur with quadrillion dollar plan in his hands, which will eventually take over the world with his androids. Meanwhile, Abstergo gets fucked because… well. They're stupid."

Desmond frowns, trying to imagine it even as shiver runs down his spine. "So," he says. "I turn into piece of Isu tech, and Elijah makes androids, and Abstergo is fucked," he says. "How does that lead to us meeting?"

"Obviously, Elijah gets you from Abstergo," Clay says, giving him a look. "See, he's scarily brilliant – it doesn't take him much to track you down, his _dad_ , after his mom dies. He tracks you down, hacks Abstergo, sees what happened, what you've become, and _oh, it all makes so much sense_ to him. So… through shenanigans, he gets you out and you meet – with you in pieces, with your technological organs spread across the world and him with the plan of putting you back together and meeting you."

Desmond makes a face. "Um," he says.

"Yeah, practically classic as son meeting estranged father stories go," Clay snorts. "Lemme tell you, the probability of that happening – it's not high."

"Yeah, I got that feel, yeah," Desmond says and rubs a hand over his stomach. "I don't want to become part of Isu tech."

Clay hums, noncommittal. "It's a way to become a god," he says. "Well… an immortal ancient machine, in this case. Theseus ship of Isu technology."

"Nice," Desmond mutters. "No thanks. Any other ways we meet?

Clay shrugs. "In one world, I save you as an AI, you hack and take over Abstero, you meet that way when Abstergo kidnaps him to continue their Animus experiments, and so on. Want to hear about that one?"

"I, uh… not, not particularly. Any way I meet him while still alive and mostly made of _flesh and bones_?" Desmond asks, making a face.

"Hmm," Clay hums, thinking about it. "Not many, while you're still being ensnared in Animus business. I mean, there is a very small possibility that once you get out of here," he motions to the Animus Island, "That you _might_ be able to convince your dad to go find Elijah, and you might meet him – but ultimately, you decide bringing him into this mess is not a good idea, so you just leave a warning to his mother, tell them to get the hell out of dodge, change their names, the whole nine yards."

"But," Desmond says, frowning, "You said nothing is zero possibility – so there is a possibility I could get out of here and meet them, talk to them?"

Clay shrugs. "I suppose. You could time travel, get to know the kid somehow when he's still a newborn. That's one way, I guess."

"Um," Desmond says, his eyes widening a bit. "... That's possible?"

"Everything is. The chance of young Elijah figuring out time travel and coming back in time as an adult man to save his martyr father isn't zero percent either," he says. "But the chances aren't very high."

"But with the device Minerva made, which I assume I'm going to use – it would be possible to make it happen?" Desmond asks.

"Anything is possible with that thing," Clay agrees and looks at him. "You could turn the moon into cheese with that thing. I don't actually know _everything_ that could happen. I don't have that kind of processing power, no one and nothing has. But if you can think it, then yeah, it's probably possible."

"So," Desmond says, half joking, "The possibility of me teleporting out of here and right in front of the house Elijah lives, that's not zero."

"Well…" Clay says and gives him a look. "The possibility of you being conscious and _sane_ while doing it isn't likely, you realise. You're in this place for a reason, Desmond, and the reason is you're dying is because your brain is imploding under all your genetic memories. Remember that before you start teleporting around."

Desmond's crooked smile fades a little. "You say that like I actually would be able to do that."

"Knowing what you could become?" Clay snorts. "I honestly wouldn't put it past you."

Desmond hesitates for a moment, uneasy feeling in his stomach. Then he cranes his head to look back to the portal leading to Ezio's memories, and to Istanbul. "I guess I should head back in," he muses.

"If you want to stay sane and alive, sure," Clay says. "You being fine without the Nexus, that's… yeah, probability of that isn't very high either."

"Probability sounds like a pain in the ass, honestly," Desmond sighs and sits up again. "What's the use of it if everything is so unlikely?"

"You tell me," Clay says and closes his eyes. "My chances of surviving were never zero either – and look where that got me."

"Yeah," Desmond agrees, rolling to his feet and stretching. "I _am_ going to get out of here, and I'm going to meet Elijah. Somehow," he says then determinedly. "Even if it's as a piece of hardware. I'm going to do it somehow."

"That's the spirit," Clay says and snorts. "What's the probability of you taking me along for the ride?"

Desmond hesitates, looking down at him. "Well," he says. "It's not zero."


End file.
